Iran and leftist confusion By: Reese Erlich, Common Dreams, June 29, 2009
When I returned from covering the Iranian elections recently, I was surprised to find my email box filled with progressive authors, academics and bloggers bending themselves into knots about the current crisis in Iran. They cite the long history of U.S. interference in Iran and conclude that the current unrest there must be sponsored or manipulated by the Empire. Read full article...
Iran: What spies don't know By: Eli Lake, NPR, June 29, 2009
About ten days after the start of Iran's insurrection, I asked a senior administration official what, if anything, the White House knew about the people behind the demonstrations. His reply: "I think it is fair to say senior administration officials are busily trying to understand how the opposition is generated and where it came from." In other words, there's a lot about the protesters we still don't know. Read full article...
Iran council certifies disputed election results By: Michael Slackman, NY Times, June 29, 2009
Iran's powerful Guardian Council certified the official results of the country's disputed presidential election on Monday, according to state television, an unexpectedly rapid move that set off angry screaming in the streets of Tehran. Read full article...
Iranian women lead the protests By: Elham Gheytanchi, San Francisco Chronicle, June 29, 2009
Ordinary women in long black chadors and head scarves - both young and old - are performing extraordinary acts of bravery in Iran today. Women are at the forefront of these nonviolent demonstrations violently suppressed by the government-backed militias (known as Basij). It took the brutal death of Neda Agha Soltan in Tehran on June 20 during a street protest to bring the role of women in this post-election crisis to light. Read full article...
Journalism rules are bent in news coverage from Iran By: Brian Stelter, Iran Focus, June 29, 2009
"Check the source" may be the first rule of journalism. But in the coverage of the protests in Iran this month, some news organizations have adopted a different stance: publish first, ask questions later. If you still don't know the answer, ask your readers. Read full article...
Protests flare ahead of ruling on Iran vote By: Farnaz Fassihi, Iran Focus, June 29, 2009
Thousands of protesters clashed with security forces at a mosque Sunday in Tehran -- marking the first major demonstration after a few days of uneasy calm -- as Iran's arrest of local employees of the British Embassy on Saturday escalated tensions with the West. Iranian media Sunday reported nine British Embassy employees had been detained for allegedly playing a role in demonstrations in Tehran protesting the results of the country's presidential elections. Read full article...
Iran: The whole world is watching By: Jon B. Alterman, World Politics Review, June 29, 2009
Four decades ago, when police and national guardsmen attacked protestors at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, the protesters shouted, "The whole world is watching." However arresting those images were, they could not possibly compare to the flood in recent weeks of YouTube videos, Flickr photos, Twitter tweets, Facebook pages, and blogs dedicated to events in Iran. Read full article...
Iran 'has arrested 2,000' in violent crackdown on dissent By: Martin Fletcher, Times Online, June 29, 2009
More than 2,000 Iranians have been arrested and hundreds more have disappeared since the regime decided to crush dissent after the disputed presidential election, a leading human rights organisation said yesterday. "A climate of terror and of fear reigns in Iran today," the International Federation for Human Rights , an umbrella body for 155 human rights organisations, said as it released the startling figures. Read full article...
'Retaliator' Obama awaits Tehran's next move By: Andrew Sullivan, Times Online, June 28, 2009
The millennial generation that elected Obama in America also exists in Iran, in proportionally even greater numbers. They didn't give Mir Hossein Mousavi his victory, just as they didn't give Obama his landslide. But they did galvanise a long-suppressed yearning for a saner foreign policy, greater social freedom and a more than minimal grasp of market economics. And so the green wave built - slowly at first and then, in the final weeks of the campaign, like a tsunami. Read full article...
Iran arrests employees of British embassy as protests return By: Michael Slackman, NY Times, June 28, 2009
Iran's government said Sunday that it had arrested Iranian employees of the British Embassy, while the police in Tehran beat and fired tear gas at several thousand protesters. The government's arrest of nine Iranian employees of the British Embassy was a significant escalation in its conflict with Britain, which Tehran has sought to cast as an instigator of the unrest since the disputed June 12 election. Read full article...
Iran: The rooftops and streets of Tehran By: Matt Renner, Truthout, June 28, 2009
At 10pm families gather on rooftops in Iran's capital city to shout together, their voices echoing throughout the sprawling city's mostly empty streets. This ritual, reminiscent of the 1979 Iranian revolution which led to the overthrow of the US-backed dictator Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, has become the "responsibility" of one young woman's family. Read full article...
In Iran, the protests have quieted, but the protesters are simmering By: Borzou Daragahi, LA Times, June 28, 2009
The young men and women enter Haft Tir Square tentatively. Their pace slows as they discreetly glance around. They spot the club-wielding uniformed security officials and plainclothes Basiji militiamen, scan the square for other would-be demonstrators. A woman in a form-fitting mini-coat looks left, then right. There is safety in numbers, but there are few of her kind here for the scheduled gathering, so she quietly moves along, glancing at the shop windows. Read full article...
Iran's crackdown quiets streets but not anger By: Brian Murphy, The Guardian, June 28, 2009
Each evening, the protest cries still come from rooftops in Tehran. They began weeks ago as a display of defiance and unity. Now they echo something else: a chorus that bemoans the suffocating crackdown but also signals that the confrontations with Iran's Islamic regime may be far from over. Read full article...
Poetry from Iran, one tweet at a time By: Davar Iran Ardalan, NPR, June 28, 2009
Persians are known for their poetry. So it is not surprising that as recent dramatic events have unfolded in Iran, so many Iranians who have been alerting the world have written poetically - even in their tweets. Meet 26-year-old Parham Baghestani. I reached Baghestani in the fabled Iranian city of Isfahan, where he lives. Read full article...
Act II in Iran's five-act play: The self-organization stage By: Al Giordano, The Field, June 27, 2009
The other day I referred to the past two weeks in Iran as "the first act of a five act play." As with the betrayed Iranian revolution of 1978-79 that toppled Shah Reza Pahlavi, there are going to be ebbs and flows to the unfolding drama - including periods of media blackout - but have no doubt, kind readers, that rebellion is finding its way. Read full article...
The thugs who lead Iran's Supreme Leader By: Gary Sick, The Daily Beast, June 27, 2009
There are many different ways to look at the developments in Iran. One perspective that seems to have been ignored is what I regard as the cardinal role of the Revolutionary Guards. Over the 20 years that Ayatollah Khamenei has been the rahbar, or leader, he has allied himself ever more closely with the Revolutionary Guards. Read full article...
Iran: For radical Islam, the end begins By: Joshua Muravchik, Washington Post, June 27, 2009
Is history ending yet again? Much as the hammers that leveled the Berlin Wall in 1989 marked the end of the Cold War, so might the protests rocking Iran signal the death of radical Islam and the challenges it poses to the West. Read full article...
Iran and America: The will to change By: Yacov Ben Efrat, Dissident Voice, June 27, 2009
Two weeks have passed since the Iranian elections of June 12, 2009, and the storm aroused by the putative result refuses to die. What's happening there is not a democratic disagreement, but a conflict between two well-defined forces over the country's future. We cannot know who really won the election, but even supposing it was incumbent president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, his "victory" has revealed a deep schism. Read full article...
Scholar's protest guide offered to Iranians By: MSNBC, June 26, 2009
Iranian protesters wondering what to do next are being encouraged to consult a source that helped drive a decade of nonviolent revolutions in Eastern Europe: a how-to guide to toppling dictatorships written by a retired American scholar who is little known outside of activist circles. But the Iranian regime definitely knows about 81-year-old Gene Sharp. His name and references to his 1993 book have buzzed around opposition Web sites and social networks. Read full article...
Iran: If ever there were a time for creative nonviolence By: Todd Gitlin, TPM Cafe, June 26, 2009
Nico Pitney, who's been splendidly liveblogging Iran news, links to an important AP dispatch, concerning extensive downloading of the nonviolent systematizer Gene Sharp's manual, "From Dictatorship to Democracy: A Conceptual Framework," in Farsi translation. "The more [Iranian rebels] learn that there is a nonviolent alternative to both violence and passive submission, the more chances they are to take a wise course of action rather than a stupid one," Sharp told the reporters. Read full article...
Iran: Night raids terrorize civilians By: Human Rights Watch, June 26, 2009
Iran's paramilitary Basij are carrying out brutal nighttime raids, destroying property in private homes and beating civilians in an attempt to stop nightly protest chants, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch also said the Iranian authorities are confiscating satellite dishes from private homes to prevent citizens from seeing foreign news. Read full article...
Women in Iran are mad as hell and they're not going to take it anymore! By: Patricia T. Morris, Peace X Peace, June 26, 2009
I have watched with great interest as the women of Iran assert themselves in their country's post-election demonstrations. The mainstream media here in the U.S. focus on how President Obama, former President Bush, Facebook, and Twitter have sparked the conflict and not the many years that Iranian women have spent chipping away at the attitudes, laws, and religious restrictions that limit their rights. Read full article...
Iran: Art for protest's sake By: Hamid Tehrani, Global Voices, June 25, 2009
Bloggers and citizen artists online have been creating designs and cartoons to add a touch of art to the insistent Iranian protest movement that has risen in response the June 12 presidential election results. As the protests in favor of an annulment continue, so does the repression by government against demonstrating citizens. Read full article...
Chomsky and 50+ intellectuals back freedom to assemble in Iran By: Al Giordano, The Field, June 25, 2009
Good on Noam Chomsky, and more than fifty intellectuals throughout the global left, including prominent Iranians, who signed this letter in support of the right of demonstrators to protest in Iran: "...it is up to the people of Iran to determine their own political course. Foreign observers are nevertheless entitled to point out that a government which claims to represent the will of its people can only do so if it respects the most basic preconditions for the determination of such a will..." Read full article...
Iran: Dialectic of revolution By: Hazem Saghieh, openDemocracy, June 25, 2009
The Iranian revolution is discovering that, in its thirtieth year, it has grown old. The wave of street demonstrations following the presidential election of 12 June 2009 reveal its fruits: "two peoples" who announce themselves in huge sociological differences - of appearance, affiliation, body-language, political slogans. Read full article...
Iran: The ministry of love-hate By: Christopher Dickey, Newsweek, June 24, 2009
Dictators all over the world have been watching Iran for lessons learned. Will the crackdown crush the opposition? Will the streets win out? Is there, perhaps, a Green or Orange or Velvet Revolution of some sort waiting to challenge them, too? They know that somewhere buried in their young and restive populations are the seeds of such a thing. Read full article...
Iran: Reading the crisis in Tehran By: Gary's Choices, June 23, 2009
As I set forth on a long vacation trip, here are a few observations about the situation in Iran based on my own experience of watching the Iranian revolution and hostage crisis from the White House thirty years ago. Don't expect that this will be resolved cleanly with a win or loss in short period of time. Read full article...
How the Iranian military can be flipped: A field guide By: Michelle Cottie, Christopher Orr, and Jason Zengerie, The New Republic, June 23, 2009
As the protests in Iran continue and reports of violence in the streets proliferate, we started to wonder what could make members of the Basij and other paramilitary groups abandon their ties to the regime and back the opposition. So, we called founding chair of the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, Peter Ackerman, to see if he had any advice. Read full article...
Iran says courts will teach protesters a lesson By: Zahra Hosseinian and Fredrik Dahl, Reuters, June 23, 2009
Iranian authorities said they would teach an exemplary lesson to "rioters" held in the worst unrest since the birth of the Islamic Republic. Riot police and Basij militia on Tehran's main squares warded off the mass protests that have marked the 11 days since disputed elections. Iran's hardline leadership appeared to have gained the ascendancy, at least for the moment. Read full article...
Unrest in Iran raises profile for Twitter By: Patrick May, Mercury News, June 23, 2009
San Francisco-based Twitter, the 2-year-old micro-blog spigot for news junkies, lonely hearts and the terminally high-strung, is both spreading news and making it over the past week - sharing updates from the protesters in Iran with the world at the same time it is becoming a household name. Read full article...
The Arabs' forlorn envy of Iranians By: Rami G. Khouri, Tehran Bureau, June 23, 2009
I started writing this column Sunday in Amman, Jordan, and finished writing it Tuesday in Beirut, Lebanon - a short journey that captured how the dynamic events in Iran are playing out in very different ways in a largely passive and vulnerable Arab world. Jordan and Lebanon capture the two extremes of the Arab world, including pro-American and pro-Iranian sentiments. Read full article...
Hi-tech helps Iranian monitoring By: Rory Cellan-Jones, BBC News, June 22, 2009
As protests continue in Iran, details are emerging of the technology used to monitor its citizens. Iran is well known for filtering the net, but the government has moved to do the same for mobile phones. Nokia Siemens Network has confirmed it supplied Iran with the technology needed to monitor, control, and read local telephone calls. Read full article...
Iran: Twitter ripped the veil off "the other" By: Andrew Sullivan, Truthout, June 21, 2009
With internet speed deliberately slowed to a crawl by the Iranian authorities, brevity and simplicity were essential. To communicate, they tweeted. Within hours of the farcical election result, I tracked down a bunch of live Twitter feeds and started to edit and rebroadcast them as a stream of human consciousness on the verge of revolution. Read full article...
Of protests and players: Iran, Burma and the U.S. By: Mizzima, June 19, 2009
Grainy images of urban streets packed with predominantly young protesters filmed from a chaotic pedestrian overpass - the mass of people below surging forward together only to disperse in individual parts. Pictures and video issuing forth from civilian journalists in Tehran of reportedly hundreds of thousands marching in opposition to the country's recent electoral results all too easily aroused an indulgence in romantic reminiscences of mass protest amidst a sea of saffron. Read full article...
AFRICA
Sudan elections and southern self-determination: At growing risk By: Eric Reeves, Sudan Tribune, June 29, 2009
Sudan's significantly delayed national elections, now scheduled for February 2010, have been very poorly supported by the international community and are at risk of even further delay. A host of technical, logistical, administrative, as well as legal and policy issues have yet to be resolved. Read full article...
Ousted Mauritania president resigns By: Al Jazeera, June 28, 2009
Mauritania's first freely elected president has formally resigned from office, paving the way for new elections more than 10 months after he was overthrown in a military coup. Sidi Ould Sheikh Abdallahi handed over power to a transitional government on Saturday under a power-sharing deal with the soldiers who toppled him in August. Read full article...
Zimbabwe: State admits activist's detention was illegal By: Nokuthula Sibanda, ZimOnline, June 26, 2009
Government lawyers on Thursday conceded that state security agents violated the law when they abducted last year top human rights campaigner Jestina Mukoko who is accused of recruiting people to topple President Robert Mugabe. Mukoko, a former state broadcaster turned human rights campaigner, was among a group of rights defenders and activists from then opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai's MDC party abducted by state security agents last year. Read full article...
Zimbabwe: Tsvangirai's newsletter hits the streets again By: Radiovop, June 24, 2009
The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)-T on Wednesday published a second edition of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai newsletter, in clear defiance of threats by the Ministry of Media, Information and Publicity. Thousands of Zimbabweans jostled outside Harvest House on Wednesday morning to grab the latest two-page edition of the newsletter that has angered George Charamba, the permanent secretary in the ministry of Media, Information and Publicity. Read full article...
Zimbabwe's hope By: James A. Harmon, Wall Street Journal, June 24, 2009
Zimbabwe is tentatively emerging from a decade of international isolation. Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai is currently on a tour of major capitals to drum up support for his fragile, yet promising, four-month-old unity government. During his visits to Washington, Brussels, Berlin and London, Mr. Tsvangirai has been asking for more development assistance. Read full article...
Nigeria: Government blames oil firms for Niger Delta crisis By: Kelechi Okoronkwo and Anote Ajeluorou, The Guardian, June 23, 2009
In what seemed a serious soul-searching, the Federal Government yesterday reappraised the hydra-headed Niger Delta crisis and submitted that negligence on the part of oil companies operating in the area led to severe environment problems like oil spillage, gas flaring, water and air pollution, which in turn engendered the current youth restiveness in the region. Read full article...
Nigeria: A stop sign for human trafficking By: CS Monitor, June 19, 2009
It's not every day that the US government gives Nigeria a shout-out for a job well done. After all, the State Department labels this African nation's human rights record "poor" and its 2007 presidential election "seriously flawed." But this week, the State Department praised Africa's most populous country for its progress in prosecuting human traffickers and helping their victims. Read full article...
Latin America calls summit in bid to restore Zelaya By: Nathan Gill and Joshua Goodman, Bloomberg, June 29, 2009
Latin American leaders are gathering in an emergency summit to restore Honduran President Manuel Zelaya to office after he was ousted by the military yesterday in a showdown over a referendum on term limits. Regional leaders, from market-friendly Mexican President Felipe Calderon to self-declared socialist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, will meet today in Nicaragua. Read full article...
Protesters demand return of ousted Honduran president Manuel Zelaya By: Rory Carroll, The Guardian, June 29, 2009
Protesters in Honduras yesterday put up roadblocks in the capital, Tegucigalpa, as they demanded the return of the president, Manuel Zelaya, hours after he was ousted in a military coup. Hundreds of people, some wearing masks and armed with sticks, put up barricades near the presidential palace as governments across the region condemned the first military overthrow in central America since the end of the cold war. Read full article...
América held hostage: Day two of the coup in Honduras By: Al Giordano, The Field, June 29, 2009
As the coup-plotters in Honduras (of a military-media-political class alliance, but this time without the support of Washington) enter their second day of temporary power with the rejection of the entire hemisphere and planet upon them, and the inconformity of the Honduran people (who defied martial law last night to erect barricades in the streets and otherwise resist the coup), we can observe "the true character" of various media and political voices across the political spectrum. Read full article...
Honduras: Military coup a blow to democracy By: Human Rights Watch, June 28, 2009
The Organization of American States (OAS) must act quickly to push for the reestablishment of democracy in Honduras after a military coup, Human Rights Watch said today. The coup took place this morning, when members of the Honduran military reportedly arrested democratically elected president José Manuel Zelaya. Read full article...
US musicians sing support for Iranian protesters By: Shaya Tayefe Mohajer, Washington Post, June 28, 2009
They wouldn't be allowed to perform in Iran, but singers Joan Baez and Jon Bon Jovi are showing their support for protesters. In videos carried on YouTube, the artists perform songs - with a few lines in Farsi - that call for peace. Read full article...
Canada: 'Die-in' to protest Canadian mine in Tibet By: CTV British Columbia, June 24, 2009
Tibetan supporters wrapped themselves in Tibetan flags and played dead outside a shareholders meeting of a Vancouver mining company Wednesday to press the company to pull out of a planned mine in Tibet. The "die-in" at the Continental Minerals meeting was in solidarity with Tibetans, who they say can't consent to the massive removal of mineral wealth under their feet. Read full article...
US: People power pushed the New Deal By: Sarah Anderson, Institute for Policy Studies, June 22, 2009
During the Great Depression, my grandfather ran a butter creamery in rural Minnesota. Growing up, I heard how a group of farmers stormed in one day and threatened to burn the place down if he didn't stop production. I had no idea who those farmers were or why they had done that - it was just a colorful story. Now I know that they were with the Farmers' Holiday Association, a protest movement that flourished in the Midwest in 1932 and 1933. Read full article...
Peru: Congress repeals controversial Amazon laws By: Survival International, June 22, 2009
The Peruvian Congress has voted to repeal two controversial Amazonian laws after protests that led to the death of an unknown number of policemen and indigenous people. The Congress voted to repeal the laws at the end of last week. The laws undermined indigenous peoples' rights and made it easier for outsiders to take control of their land. Read full article...
Post-killings, Peru clamps down on NGOs By: Survival International, June 17, 2009
Senior figures in Peru are clamping down on both Peruvian and foreign NGOs in the wake of the violent protests which erupted in the country on 5th June. The Congressional Foreign Relations Committee is examining a proposal to restrict the funding of Peruvian NGOs by outside agencies. Many indigenous organizations receive financial support from Western funding agencies, and have done for decades. Read full article...
China delays software censor rule By: Michael Wines, NY Times, June 30, 2009
Facing strong resistance at home and abroad, China on Tuesday indefinitely delayed enforcement of a new rule requiring manufacturers to pre-install Internet filtering software on all new computers. The software, called the Green Dam-Youth Escort, had caused a torrent of protests from both Chinese computer users and global computer makers, including many in the United States, since the government order became public in early June. Read full article...
Cambodia: Khmer Rouge survivor tells of horrific conditions at torture centre By: The Guardian, June 29, 2009
One of the few survivors of the Khmer Rouge's main torture centre wept at a UN-backed tribunal today as he recounted the conditions at the prison where 16,000 people were tortured before execution. Vann Nath, 63, escaped execution because he was an artist and took the job of painting and sculpting portraits of the Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot. His special status did not spare him misery. Read full article...
Burma: Monks boycott minister's offering By: Ko Wild, Mizzima, June 29, 2009
Several monks on Saturday refrained from going out to collect swan offering in Myingyan town in Mandalay division, following a visit and offerings made by junta's Minister of Industries Aung Thawng. Monks in Burma, who usually go out at dawn for food offerings from devotees, on Saturday refused to go when they came to know that the visiting Industries Minister Aung Thawng would also make offerings to the monks. Read full article...
Burma court rejects Aung San Suu Kyi witness appeal By: Daniel Schearf, VOA News, June 29, 2009
Burma's highest court has rejected an appeal to allow more defense witnesses in the trial of detained democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi. The trial has been widely condemned as rigged to keep the Nobel Peace Prize winner locked up. The men are senior members of Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party and critics of Burma's military government. Read full article...
Burma: In the frame By: Aaron Lewis, SBS Dateline, June 28, 2009
The constant threat of capture, arrest and torture are just some of the hazards of working as an undercover journalist in Burma. This week Aaron Lewis speaks with a reporter, code name 'Joshua', working for the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB). The brave video-journalists of the DVB are the only media in Burma that has so far managed to evade the savage crackdown on that country's free press. Read full article...
Nepal stops exiles from marching to Tibet, 34 held By: Reuters, June 26, 2009
Nepali police detained 34 Tibetan refugees marching to the Tibet border on Friday, the latest crackdown on exiles demanding freedom for their Himalayan homeland. Police said 26 men and eight women were picked up from Balesi, near the Friendship Bridge which lies on Nepal's border with China. Read full article...
China: Action of "omission" to protest censorship By: Mary Joyce, DigiActive, June 25, 2009
To protest the implementation of the Green Dam Youth Escort filtering program on all computers sold in China, the blogger Ai Wei Wei is asking Chinese users to boycott the Internet on July 1st, 2009. July 1st is the date on which Green Dam must come pre-installed (or on an attached disk) for all new Chinese computers. Read full article...
China arrests prominent dissident By: Al Jazeera, June 24, 2009
A well-known dissident has been formally arrested after being detained for six months on suspicion of inciting subversion, Chinese state media has reported. Liu Xiaobo was charged on with "alleged agitation activities" aimed at overthrowing the government and the nation's socialist system, the official Xinhua news agency reported on Wednesday. Read full article...
Thailand: Thousands affected by train strike By: Mong Palatino, Global Voices, June 24, 2009
More than 200,000 passengers were affected by the two-day nationwide train strike launched by employees of the State Railway of Thailand (SRT). The workers were protesting a cabinet resolution which they claim would lead to the privatization of the railway company. The strike was canceled Tuesday evening after authorities assured union officers that there will be no privatization involved with the railway modernization program. Read full article...
Philippines: At large - The power of protest By: Rina Jimenez-David, Inquirer, June 23, 2009
In the run-up to the first anti-Con-ass and anti-Cha-cha rallies, TV reporters sought "person-on-the-street" interviews with office-goers in Makati where the rally was to be held. Most of those interviewed said they weren't joining the demonstration, with one commenting that she was tired of joining rallies because "what have rallies changed anyway?" Read full article...
China: Artist urges online boycott By: Edward Wong, NY Times, June 22, 2009
A prominent artist and critic of the Communist Party, Ai Weiwei, called Monday for Chinese to boycott the Internet on July 1 to protest censorship software. The government is requiring that all computers sold after July 1 have the software, Green Dam-Youth Escort, saying it is intended to block access to pornography. Read full article...
India: Academics deplore Maoist, police violence By: Cites Vanaik and Bidwai, Transnational Institute, June 22, 2009
Eminent academics and journalists have expressed deep concern at the ongoing violence and massive police action in Lalgarh. This will only lead to another round of blood-letting and a spiral of renewed violence, tragedy and injustice. "We deplore the reckless, self-serving violence of the Maoists, who have exploited West Bengal's post-election chaos by using deprived and angry tribals as pawns and by brutally attacking CPM cadres and offices." Read full article...
Burma jails two supporters of Aung San Suu Kyi for 18 months By: VOA News, June 21, 2009
The party of Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi says Burma's military rulers have sentenced two of her supporters to 18 months in prison for praying for her release. National League for Democracy spokesman Nyan Win said Sunday party members Chit Pe and Aung Saw Wai were charged with insulting religion and sentenced several days ago. Read full article...
Freedom House report: Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan remain worst of the worst By: New Eurasia, June 27, 2009
Released on June 3 2009, the "Worst of the Worst: The World's Most Repressive Societies 2009" report by Freedom House lists two Central Asian states - Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan - as worst of the worst. The report is based on "Freedom in the World" Freedom House's Annual Global Survey of political rights and civil liberties. Read full article...
Armenia: Opposition detainees released By: Onnik Krikorian, Global Voices, June 23, 2009
Following a general amnesty agreed upon by the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia on 19 June, several senior opposition figures on trial and in detention for over a year since the 1 March post-election unrest in the country were finally pardoned and released. Many observers believe the trials were politically motivated. Read full article...
UK: Court decides against a blogger's rights to anonymity By: Judith Townend, Global Voices, June 23, 2009
A new legal precedent has been set for UK bloggers. Last week, in the England and Wales High Court, Mr Justice Eady ruled that a police officer who previously wrote about his working life on his NightJack blog, did not have the right to remain anonymous. Read full article...
UK: West Papuans push their cause at Stonehenge event By: Radio New Zealand International, June 22, 2009
A West Papuan dance troupe has used its performance at Stonehenge in Britain to highlight their people's struggle for human rights in Indonesia's Papua region. Record crowds of 36,500 people descended on Stonehenge for Summer Solstice celebrations organised by the British Council of Druids who had invited the Mambesak troupe and West Papuan activist Benny Wenda as special guests. Read full article...
Egypt: Senior Muslim Brotherhood figures detained By: Al Bawaba, June 28, 2009
Egyptian security forces conducted raids early Sunday and arrested three senior Muslim Brotherhood figures in Cairo. According to the Muslim Brotherhood's website, among those arrested are Dr. Abdel-Moneim Abu el-Fotouh, Judge Fathi Lashin, and Dr. Jamal Abdul Salam, Head of the Emergency Relief Committee of the Arab Doctors' Federation and the Muslim Brotherhood's candidate in the 2005 elections. Read full article...
For radical Islam, the end begins By: Joshua Muravchik, Washington Post, June 27, 2009
Is history ending yet again? Much as the hammers that leveled the Berlin Wall in 1989 marked the end of the Cold War, so might the protests rocking Iran signal the death of radical Islam and the challenges it poses to the West. Read full article...
The waste of Israel's Gaza war By: Sherine Tadros, Al Jazeera, June 27, 2009
Exactly six months ago - minutes before Israel launched its war - I was sitting in a coffee shop in Gaza City's main square. Six months later, here I am again. At the same table, ordering the same drink from the same waiter who is talking about the same thing - no fuel, no electricity, no goods. Read full article...
Bahrain: Newspaper suspended for a day By: Ayesha Saldanha, Global Voices, June 23, 2009
On Monday, 22 June, Bahrain's oldest newspaper in circulation Akhbar Al Khaleej was suspended for the day after printing an article critical of certain Iranian leaders and making reference to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's alleged Jewish origins. The move would seem to have been made to avoid provoking unrest amongst the Shi'a majority in Bahrain. Read full article...
West Papua: Prisoner abuse and military build-up By: Free West Papua Campaign UK, June 26, 2009
Following recent representations made by Human Rights Watch regarding the widespread practises of torture and abuse at Abepura Prison, the following is an appeal to the United Nations to undertake an urgent and far-reaching investigation into the activities of the Indonesian authorities in West Papua. In particular prisoner abuse and human rights violations that have become prevalent in the region. Read full article...
Papuans regularly abducted, beaten by army By: The Sydney Morning Herald, June 26, 2009
Indonesian special forces soldiers based in the Papuan town of Merauke regularly abduct Papuans from the streets and their homes and and beat people indiscriminately, a report from Human Rights Watch says. According to the organisation, indigenous Papuans have been beaten with fists, boots, pipes and hoses, and forced to eat mouthfuls of raw, hot chillies in a series of brutal acts that took place between August 2007 and May this year. Read full article...
Australia West Papua Association pleads with Pacific Islands Forum leaders By: Joe Collins, Scoop, June 23, 2009
AWPA (Sydney) has written to the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) leaders who are meeting in Cairns in August, urging them to discus the deteriorating situation in West Papua at their meeting. Since last year's Pacific Islands Forum, the situation in West Papua has continued to deteriorate with increasing intimidation of the West Papuan people by the Indonesian security forces. Read full article...
Power to the people: A look at key political revolutions By: Michael Muskal, LA Times, June 30, 2009
Political uprisings come in lots of colors, orange in Ukraine, yellow in the Philippines and now green in Iran. The similarities and differences illustrate what have become the rules to understanding peoples' rebellions. Read full article...
A response to Steve Weissman's "Nonviolence 101" By: Stephen Zunes, Truthout, June 28, 2009
Steve Weissman's article "Iran: Nonviolence 101" was profoundly inaccurate and misleading, particularly in regard to the role of Peter Ackerman and the organization he co-founded, the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC), for which I chair the committee of academic advisers. All of Weissman's arguments against US government involvement in training and related support for nonviolent resistance movements in Iran, which he put forward in his article, would be quite valid - if they were true. Read full article...
The new executive politics: A democratic challenge By: Saskia Sassen, openDemocracy, June 26, 2009
The institutional balance within modern democratic systems is disturbed and dysfunctional. Some of the unhappiness of citizens in many a western state about their political leaders' remoteness, corruption, or lack of accountability can be understood as a thwarted recognition of this problem. This an old history. Read full article...
Business and human rights: The next big thing By: Annabel Short, openDemocracy, June 24, 2009
Business and human rights." An oxymoron? Two recent events in New York have made a strong case that taking a human-rights approach to business is both right in principle and can deliver effective results that benefit citizens and communities. It is an approach that the international delegates gathering for a major summit in the same city on 24-26 June 2009 should bear in mind. Read full article...
Will digital dissent win in Iran and China? By: CS Monitor, June 24, 2009
Dictators these days must resort to ever-trickier ways to prevent the truth of their failings from being made known via digital technology. Just one image in cyber space, such as the killing of Neda Agha-Soltan during Iran's protests, can plant doubts about a regime's claim to power - even among its supporters - and begin to erode its legitimacy. Read full article...
Coping with digital revolution: China offers Green Dam, Iran faces Neda By: Guobin Yang, Yale Global Online, June 23, 2009
Recent events in Iran and China have again demonstrated the global power of the Internet. Iranians used web technologies to broadcast their street protests to the world while Chinese netizens challenged a government policy to require computers to pre-install a new filtering software. Read full article...
Record turnout for Arms Trade Treaty week of action By: Amnesty International, June 22, 2009
Last week, campaigners in the largest number of countries so far took part in an annual worldwide Week of Action, aimed at highlighting the need for an effective Arms Trade Treaty (ATT). NGOs in over 90 countries organized activities to draw attention to the treaty, and the rapid rise in the human cost of armed violence. Read full article...
How to be a photojournalist By: Stephen Farrell, NY Times, June 16, 2009
Michael Kamber one of Baghdad Bureau's photographic regulars, has just written a post about conflict photojournalism for our sister NYT blog Lens after a recent trip to Somalia. It shares tips from a man who has spent years shooting video and stills in some of the most dangerous places on earth. Well worth checking out. Read full article...
Iran : "Tous les soirs, les gens montent sur les toits et crient Allah o Akbar" By: Le Monde, June 25, 2009
Alors que l'Iran s'enfonce dans une crise politique majeure, la voix de ses habitants peine à passer les frontières. Les tentatives des médias occidentaux de faire parler les acteurs de cette crise se heurtent à deux obstacles : le blocage des communications par le pouvoir - blocage intermittent mais réel - et la peur des opposants de s'exprimer. Read full article...
Amazonía peruana: Guerra por los recursos y contra las drogas By: Ricardo Soberón Garrido, Transnational Institute, June 22, 2009
En la Amazonía peruana, el Estado libra dos guerras contradictorias aunque en paralelo. La guerra contra las drogas, que pretende terminar con el uso de sustancias psicoactivas en el mundo a través de la desaparición de plantas como la coca y la cannabis, y la guerra por los recursos naturales, que pretende reordenar el territorio amazónico a voluntad de empresas, conglomerados y megaproyectos. Read full article...
Irán con ojos venezolanos By: Moises Naim, El Pais, June 21, 2009
Irán y Venezuela no podrían ser países más diferentes. Piadosos chiíes, rezos diarios y ley seca en uno; rumberos caribeños, salsa y mucho ron, en el otro. Las iraníes con trajes y velos que todo lo cubren; venezolanas con biquinis que todo lo descubren. Irán es república islámica y Venezuela, república bolivariana. Read full article...
Paremos la violencia contra los pueblos indígenas en Perú! By: Transnational Institute, June 16, 2009
Las poblaciones indígenas de la Amazonía Peruana condujeron una huelga general y pacifica durante casi 60 días en protesta por los 10 decretos legislativos promovidos por el Gobierno Peruano para facilitar la implementación del TLC con Estados Unidos el cual amenaza sus derechos y el medioambiente. Mas específicamente, entregar en concesión a compañías de petróleo y minería 44 de las 75 millones de hectáreas del Amazonas, los cuales son territorios indígenas sin ningún tipo de acuerdo o consulta con ellos. Read full article...
Petition: Reverse the Honduran coup d'etat By: Nonviolence International, June 30, 2009
In response to the kidnapping and force exile of the President of Honduras on June 28, 2009, we join the Honduran people and the world community in condemning the coup d'etat against the democratically elected leader of Honduras. We support the call of the President for the people of Honduras and their friends to engage in massive civil disobedience to appeal to the conscience of military rulers, congressional leaders, members of the judiciary and the business elite to support the rule of law and the will of the people. Read full article...
Nonviolence International co-leads urgent delegation to Honduras By: Nonviolent Action Network, June 28, 2009
In light of the military coup in Honduras in the early hours of Sunday, June 28, 2009 and the arrest and forced exile of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, we are forming an Emergency International Delegation to go to Honduras as soon as possible. The first members of the delegation will depart for Honduras on Monday, June 29, and others will follow during the week. Read full article...
War Resisters League: 44th annual peace award By: War Resisters League, September 18, 2009 at 239 Thompson Street, New York
WRL wishes to honor the work of Dennis Brutus, Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA), and Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe (GALZ) both by hearing about their vital campaigns and activities and sharing food and conversation, as we further weave our movements and celebrate our victories. We will enjoy an African-inspired dinner at 6:30, followed by a program and award ceremony at 8:00p.m. Read full article...
Blood at the blockade: Peru's indigenous uprising By: Gerardo Rénique, América Latina en Movimiento, June 8, 2009 On June 5, near a stretch of highway known as the Devil's Curve in the northern Peruvian Amazon, police began firing live rounds into a multitude of indigenous protestors - many wearing feathered crowns and carrying spears. Both natives and mestizos took to the streets protesting the bloody repression. Read full article...
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